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I have rarely seen QA become developers; most grow/progress into a Business Analyst. And the ones who do, they may be developers to begin with but start with QA because they were not good enough to become developers or didn't find programming jobs and started as QA to just enter the job market.
A QA is a more functional job that that of a developer; in that sense, it is more in lines with the BA than a developer.
I was one. Granted, I was only in QA for six months, but that is where I started. It was also a very different scene back then. There was no web and jobs were much harder to find. You took what you could and hoped to move up quickly. I did when I started writing programs to automate testing. One of the development manager saw what I did one day and said "Why the h*ll are you in QA? I have a position open, want to move?". That was that.
My spouse was a software developer, who became a software developer in test, and then became a business analyst.
Software developer in test is a quite different job from software tester, though casual language would often apply the words "software tester" to a software developer in test job. A software developer in test develops software (long pause) which happens to automate the testing of software.
QA used to be hot career 10-15 years ago. Back then, there used to be a team of QA for every large project. As IT progressed and cost cutting initiatives started shaping the market, two things happened. First, BA's took over the QA role for small-to-mid scale projects. Second, QA got off-shored as it is incredibly easy to be managed off-shore. And kinda third, spouses of H1B visa guys (who mostly have good IT experience back home) started working in QA as it is a relatively low stress minimum fuss job compared to other IT roles like BA, SA and Developers.
Very few organizations, like the healthcare which has very systematic methodology and audits, have dedicated QA teams. All others have settled for BA's to manage testing as they go, or hire short term consultants for the QA phase and let them roll-off as soon as the projects go live. Not a very promising career in my opinion. I would never recommend anyone starting their career to enter the QA role. If it is not dead already, it will be very soon (as in highly skilled and experienced guys not finding anything because it is being off-shored for one-fifth their salary). If one is willing to learn and work hard, BA is a very good option. But again, BA market has seen extreme competition from IT off-shoring companies (like Infosys and Cognizant); so again, proceed with caution.
This, all of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Velvet Jones
I wish our QA staff knew how to program. Most do not. Still, a good QA engineer can make a long term career out of it if they grow with the position. You do have to have skills/smarts though. You don't need to know how to program, but you should understand the concepts, as that helps you test. What is always sad is that the really good QA people tend to get pulled in to development or sustaining engineer if they show any real skills. So you are usually left with newbies or dolts in QA.
Sadly, this is largely true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GTRdad
I also do not know anyone who was a QA/tester that became a programmer.
Most testers in my fields are not very smart and way too slow. Many times they just get into trouble delaying the releases. The best they could do is dump tables into files and run a file diff tool and ask developers what caused the diffs. THen eventually they tried to just be the issue trackers... not the developers' favorite people so they all eventually get fired.
I think its going to be a while before my sector would trust non-developers to take care of business
Most of the testers I worked with as a tester are now programmers/developers/PMs/etc., myself included.
I also do not know anyone who was a QA/tester that became a programmer.
Most testers in my fields are not very smart and way too slow. Many times they just get into trouble delaying the releases. The best they could do is dump tables into files and run a file diff tool and ask developers what caused the diffs. THen eventually they tried to just be the issue trackers... not the developers' favorite people so they all eventually get fired.
I think its going to be a while before my sector would trust non-developers to take care of business
that's so wrong. In A lot bigger companies like Microsoft, google, a SDET(Software Development Engineer in Test) can become a SDE(Software Development Engineer), SDE can become a SDET.
SDET is consider a tester in Microsoft because there is no regular QA/tester there.
that's so wrong. In A lot bigger companies like Microsoft, google, a SDET(Software Development Engineer in Test) can become a SDE(Software Development Engineer), SDE can become a SDET.
SDET is consider a tester in Microsoft because there is no regular QA/tester there.
That is different! You are talking about software companies whose primary industry/product is its software; as opposed to a bank whose primary business is banking supported by software - two totally different concepts and focus on resources.
QA market has declined significantly over years and will continue to decline. Back in early 2000's, there would be a team of Business Analysts, Data Analysts and Testers. Now, there is a team of BAs to combine it all. IT BA's are expected do be data analyst + QA on top of doing their BA role. Why pay for 3 when you can get it from 1?
Software testers are generally perceived in IT to be kind of the bottom of the barrel
Is this how everyone perceives it? I am asking a serious question because my wife is a localization engineer for her own foreign language only, and wants to get more training, posssibly a degree in it, and do it for the rest of her life. Obviously we don't want to invest a lot of money if this is a low end, low paid job. She feels proud to use her "language skills" and does localization, testing, translating, which at this point is contract only, on call only.
Is this how everyone perceives it? I am asking a serious question because my wife is a localization engineer for her own foreign language only, and wants to get more training, posssibly a degree in it, and do it for the rest of her life. Obviously we don't want to invest a lot of money if this is a low end, low paid job. She feels proud to use her "language skills" and does localization, testing, translating, which at this point is contract only, on call only.
desktop support is the bottom of the barrel in the whole operation. Testers are BOTB in the development/busines support teams
That is different! You are talking about software companies whose primary industry/product is its software; as opposed to a bank whose primary business is banking supported by software - two totally different concepts and focus on resources.
QA market has declined significantly over years and will continue to decline. Back in early 2000's, there would be a team of Business Analysts, Data Analysts and Testers. Now, there is a team of BAs to combine it all. IT BA's are expected do be data analyst + QA on top of doing their BA role. Why pay for 3 when you can get it from 1?
I've seen this myself at my current company. We do have full-time QA people, but it would be impossible for them to do proper testing on anything because of the ridiculous timelines they are faced with. They do what they can, which isn't much. The BAs do as much testing as the QA people do, if not more.
Is this how everyone perceives it? I am asking a serious question because my wife is a localization engineer for her own foreign language only, and wants to get more training, posssibly a degree in it, and do it for the rest of her life. Obviously we don't want to invest a lot of money if this is a low end, low paid job. She feels proud to use her "language skills" and does localization, testing, translating, which at this point is contract only, on call only.
I won't get into the debate of what is considered bottom of the barrel. That is a personal opinion. I strongly believe people should do whatever they enjoy as a career and something that suits their personality and life style. Not everyone can become a lawyer, a doctor, a receptionist, a tecaher or a florist.
Going back to your question about localization engineer and QA, I would be scared for that to be my life long dream job. Localization is something that by default means they need technical stuff who knows a different langugage. Isn't that a prime target for off-shoring? If she is 90% technical (and very good at it) with 10% language skills that makes her good for that job, nothing wrong. If she is 50-50%, that is a very narrow based skill, perfect for one job, but miserable as a cross-sell.
The QA role in the business support model is a failed experiment. A long time ago the dynamic duo is the trader and the programmer. Everyone has been trying to break them apart and put as many people in between them. Back in 2004 there was so much money the top level idiots cooked up Plan, Build, Operate & Control in order to split up the developers' job into more roles. Plan(BA & developers), Build(developers), Operate(L1 'support' & developers) & Control (QA and developers) ... see the pattern here? Control was the scapegoat of this trainwreck, I've seen them cry in groups after performance reviews. Even their offshored counterparts couldnt get it right. Operate was a failure too. We're now back to accepting the developer's unit testing as 'the test'. We also have sections of the business that gave up on their Operate people and had developers own the operations support. The Plan guys, well they dont waste time planning/designing crap anymore. They now ask us when can we look into their client's requirement while on their knees. I dont know what they do all day to tell you the truth
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